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Last Night at the Reichstag
Mar. 17th, 2008 11:36 amI have made up my mind: I am coming back to Berlin to stay. Sometime, I don't know when and I don't really know how I'm going to afford it, but I am coming back and I am coming to live here for at least a little while.
This decision (which I'd really already reached to a certain extent) has been cemented by last night's trip to the Reichstagkuppel. The copula is a long-standing tourist attraction- probably because it's free- but Johanna and I went up there last night.
There's just something about it- it's the symbol of Germany trying to get itself back together. It's got the taint of the worst of the old time-you can see pictures of NSDAP party members in uniform in the seats of the old building, deliberately turning their backs on the podium to read newspapers and disrupt the government- but because of fire, it seems to serve as a symbol of the Germany that Hitler overtook and perverted. I dunno, this is getting kind of deep, even for me, but I just feel like there's such a great feeling to the place- history and reason and a commitment to better ways of being.
The view was nice at night, but nothing special- it was too cloudy to really see much, and while I took pictures, most of them came out too blurry or dim to really be all that great.
But I'm really glad I went, and I really want to come back to Berlin and stay. This place is just too alive to be ignored. Vienna, I could survive and wave goodbye without too much sorrow, but this place I am keeping. This place is going to be mine.
This decision (which I'd really already reached to a certain extent) has been cemented by last night's trip to the Reichstagkuppel. The copula is a long-standing tourist attraction- probably because it's free- but Johanna and I went up there last night.
There's just something about it- it's the symbol of Germany trying to get itself back together. It's got the taint of the worst of the old time-you can see pictures of NSDAP party members in uniform in the seats of the old building, deliberately turning their backs on the podium to read newspapers and disrupt the government- but because of fire, it seems to serve as a symbol of the Germany that Hitler overtook and perverted. I dunno, this is getting kind of deep, even for me, but I just feel like there's such a great feeling to the place- history and reason and a commitment to better ways of being.
The view was nice at night, but nothing special- it was too cloudy to really see much, and while I took pictures, most of them came out too blurry or dim to really be all that great.
But I'm really glad I went, and I really want to come back to Berlin and stay. This place is just too alive to be ignored. Vienna, I could survive and wave goodbye without too much sorrow, but this place I am keeping. This place is going to be mine.
